


a talk about strategy

by trash_rendar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Comrades in Arms, Gen, Male Friendship, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, What's Better Than This?; Guys Bein' Dudes, leadership is hard even when you're not going through a character arc, stormpilot if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22396168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_rendar/pseuds/trash_rendar
Summary: War is rough. Poe and Finn chit-chat about it.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Finn
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	a talk about strategy

Aftab is much more of a pessimist than his father, Poe thinks. Admiral Ackbar had always been unafraid to tell it like it was, good or bad, but he’d never talked even half as much about the bad as Aftab. But then Ackbar had never had half as much bad to talk about than Aftab; the war for the Resistance post-Crait has been a long string of failures and near-successes, punctuated by the occasional marginal victory or exploding battleship. It’s a simple story, simple enough that even hotshot flyboy General Dameron can understand it: the good guys keep bleeding people and resources, and the bad guys keep on coming.

It’s not fair to think of Aftab as a harbinger of doom and gloom, Poe realizes intellectually. But he still braces himself every time he sees him pacing the deck.

“Partisan cell took a hit at Foless Crossroads,” the Mon Cal reports, keeping pace with Poe as they speedwalk down the hall. “A bad one.”

Poe snaps the chinstrap off his helmet, tucks it into his helmet. “How bad?”

“They’re down two cruisers and a frigate, with accompanying fighter support - all hands. Reduced to a bulk freighter with a skeleton crew. But they’re still convinced they can keep fighting.”

“What, are they gonna roll down the windows and shoot spitballs at the First Order?”

“It gets worse.”

“Of course it does.”

“They’re hauling bacta and trauma supplies that other cells are depending on in that sector. Without an adequate escort, hyperspace hunter-killers will obliterate them in no time. They’re convinced they need to run the planetary blockades.”

“Well, tell them to stand off and wait for backup.”

“I have.” Aftar’s fishlike mouth is a grim, firm line. “They’re going anyway.”

“Goddamn idiots,” Poe spits.

“I take it your raiding mission went equally poorly.”

“Yeah. They’re really dug in tight on Oovoo IV. Call up Green Squadron’s reserve pilots, get them into the simulators. Spare them a couple hours, it might be all they get.”

“Could you inflict any damage?”

“Mostly superficial, nothing long-term. We’d have been better off not going in at all.”

“Those prisoners in the detention center were on the First Order’s enemies list for a reason - they must be freed. We must keep trying.”

“Yeah, us and what army?” Poe snaps.

Aftab stops short, and Poe can see a few crewers milling around do the same. BB-8 creeps to a halt at their feet, unusually quiet and obviously depressed, peering up at Poe with worry in his photoreceptor. Poe mops his face with his free hand; there’s bags under his eyes, and he’s convinced his stubble is starting to grow stubble. He needs a cup of caf to leave out for everyone else while he drinks the rest of the pot. Most of all, he needs a minute alone.

“Sorry, Junior,” he sighs. “I didn’t mean to blow up on you there. I just – I gotta take five.”

“Take as long as you need,” Aftab replies. He’s a rock, that one – just lets the harsh realities of war roll right off his back, always looking towards the next stage of the campaign. Just like his dad. “We’ll await you on A deck for the strategy meeting,” he adds, as Poe steps into a darkened side room.

Poe lets the door stay open just long enough to let BB-8 in. Then he peels off the rest of his flight gear and shucks himself out of the top half of his flightsuit, tying the empty sleeves around his waist and letting the rest of the material hang off his frame. The climate controlled air stings his bare arms – it wakes him up, but doesn’t make him any less exhausted. He scrubs his face again, with both hands this time, as he crosses to the starlit window. BB-8 follows him over to linger by his angle, blooping sadly.

“Yeah, I know buddy, I know.” In fact, Poe knows better than most.

Poe stares out at the stars and thinks about how weird it feels to have people calling him “General Dameron”. He thinks that General Leia is the only person he’d ever met who wore that title easily, and then he thinks about what the General would do if she were here. He thinks that Leia and her friends were incredible people, and wonders how they were supposed to find enough people like them to beat the First Order. He wonders how the hell they’re going to scrounge up enough people willing to fight just to take the next hill.

He thinks about Snap and Kare and Jess and everyone else in Black Squadron, and whether they were having better luck than he was. He thinks about the Colossus, still weeks behind their scheduled rendezvous; about Kazuda and his friends, kids with their whole lives ahead of them stuck in the same bare-knuckle brawl for survival as the rest of the free galaxy. He thinks about the map of Resistance cells that they have unfolded in holographic form on the bridge of Aftab’s cruiser, each starbird pin like a star in the night, and tries to remember how many of them have winked out as the days ticked by.

Then he thinks, very hard, about not thinking about any of that, because it’s depressing and defeatist and not what the galaxy needs right now.

It doesn’t really work.

The door sweeps open behind him. He can make out a familiar shadow reflected in the transparisteel viewport before it sweeps closed again. Then Finn is by his side, still wearing the same beaten and stitched flight jacket Poe had gifted him on D’Qar.

The ex-stormtrooper’s manner is easy, in spite of everything. “What’s the word, General?”

“The word is four letters long, and you can’t say it on the Holonet.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah. How about you?”

“Ahh, I’m doing just fine. Liberated a Core system today – that’s three this week. Did it blindfolded, with a sharp stick and one arm tied behind my back. No casualties – but of course, I didn’t bring any backup.”

“Oh really.”

“Yup. Oh, and I found out the other day that I’m actually this sector’s long-lost prince.”

“No kidding?”

“Nah.” Finn shook his head, mouth stretched wryly to either side. “Nah, we got our asses kicked.”

Poe chuckles, and stamps the levity back down as quickly as it came. A rustbucket fleet tender putters into view through the glass, flanked by two snubfighters held together by chewing gum and the will of the Force.

“We should be bigger than this,” he says, pointing to the sorry collection outside. “We should have more allies. Surely we’re not the only ones in the galaxy who aren’t okay with being ruled by those First Order thugs, so where the hell is everybody else?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed—” Outside the black of realspace is washed away in a torrent of tumultuous blue as the cruiser makes the jump to lightspeed. “—But we’re pretty hard to find right now.”

“Not that hard,” Poe pouts. “The First Order can certainly find us.”

“They have hyperspace tracking. That’s basically cheating.”

“They also have most of the galaxy under their boot.”

Finn shrugs noncommittally, like he knows his favorite nunaball team is gonna pull through in the fourth quarter but he wants his buddy who roots for the other side to think have his moment. “For now.”

“You sound pretty confident.”

There’s a pause; Poe almost imagines he can sense Finn trying to pull his thoughts toward him, arrange them in some kind of order. Finally he says, “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but the First Order doesn’t fight like us. There’s a lot of… callousness in the officer corps. To them, the objective in front of them is the only objective. You see a control point, you take it. Doesn’t matter how many troopers you lose – we can make more.”

_Make, steal, grow, brainwash,_ Poe thinks ruefully. He knows similar synonyms must be floating around in Finn’s head, too. _All that just to throw them all away._

“The Resistance isn’t like that,” Finn continues. The turbulent blue outside plays hypnotically over his face as he watches the cruiser’s wake through the viewport. “It’s military, don’t get me wrong. But it’s people, too. It’s like family. We don’t throw people away or leave people behind – not that we can _afford_ to, but even if we could, we wouldn’t. It’s not who we are.” He smirks, adding, “They don’t even have to be part of us, you know? They can just be … people. And we still help.”

“We do what we can,” Poe shrugs. “Although lately it hasn’t exactly been enough…”

“Oovoo IV still locked up tight?”

“Tighter than a Hutt’s deposit box.”

“Right. But,” Finn says, turning, “We’re gonna keep trying until we crack it, right? Poe, that was – that was your third raid in as many days! Don’t you get it, man? That’s – that’s exactly what I’m talking about. We don’t quit, we don’t give up, and we don’t leave anybody behind.”

“Yeah,” Poe huffs, “but how does that get us into the prison?”

Finn thinks. Then he gets an idea, and it lights up his face. “We don’t.”

Poe stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “That- that’s…”

“I know. It’s genius.”

“Nooo, that’s – I was gonna say incongruent – “

“’Incongruent’?”

“Well, don’t you think it’s a little at odds with what you were just saying – "

“Whoa, man, hold up, did you borrow that history nerd’s thesaurus while I was gone – “

They’re talking over each other, now, bickering like a scene out of some of the stories about the General’s droids. BB-8 yips to break them up.

Finn seizes the opening. “Listen: We, the Resistance, don’t necessarily need to break _in_ to the prison. We just need to break the prisoners _out_. Right?”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“So we don’t try to break down the front door. We just have to put a strike team – led by yours truly – inside the garrison building.”

“And your team’s gonna need a distraction,” Poe nods. “Led by yours truly.”

“Well, I mean, if you’re not busy…”

“No, no, I’ll clear my schedule.”

“Okay. Cool. Once we’re in, we raid the armory, grab as many blasters as we can carry – ”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. The armory? That place’ll be crawling with goons. You’ll get fried before you can even get the door open.”

“Not if you blow out the power relay for the garrison.” Finn waits with spread hands for Poe to follow his logic.

“Blow out the relay, emergency power kicks on, crew goes to emergency stations…”

“…Holding cells lose power…”

“…Armory’s open…”

“…They’ll suppress the riot…”

“…We swoop in from behind with the blasters…!”

“And help the prisoners free themselves!”

“ _Yes_. _Yes_!”

“It’s genius,” Poe says breathlessly. BB squeals in agreement.

“Right!?”

“It’s also _super_ dangerous.”

“Oh, no doubt.”

“You really think it’ll work?”

“ _Hell_ yeah!”

They come to a plateau in their excitement, a kind of peak in the roller coaster where Poe can look back and start picking over all the little flaws in the plan. He can think of a few – high risk factor foremost among them, lack of personnel to fill out either the strike team or air support – but…

Honestly? It was a good plan. The kind of plan the Rebellion would have pulled off, back in the day.

“This is how we win,” Finn is saying. “We don’t just _fight_. We _save_ people, too.” He turns back to the window, a wistful smile playing on his lips. “I had to join the Resistance to learn that.”

Poe nods in slow understanding. “That’s how you know we’re the good guys, right?”

Finn nods. Then he studies Poe’s face. “So how’re you feeling now, General?”

Poe lets out a long breath. “Better,” he replies, and means it. “Less like I’m next in line on the laser guillotine, more like I’m wearing clothes that don’t fit right.”

It doesn’t take as long, this time, for Finn to get an idea; he swings the leather jacket effortlessly off his shoulders and drapes it over Poe’s as he stands, arms crossed, at the window. “So how about you get back into clothes that _do_ fit,” he says, “and then come join us for the strategy meeting.”

“You’re gonna be there?”

“Well, yeah. I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he adds with a rakish shrug, “but I’m kind of a big deal in the Resistance?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Poe smirks. “Get outta here, Big Deal.”

Finn chortles as he leaves, and when the door sweeps shut again Poe is left alone again with the contents of his own mind. It’s a lot lighter, now.

The jacket helps. It’s something familiar, he supposes, imbued with the care of a friend. The scents of the places it’s been still linger in the leather – desert sands and temperate forests, engine grease and fathier fur. He shrugs it a bit tighter over his shoulders and thinks about his attack run – the one he’ll lead tomorrow, covering Finn and his commandos at Oovoo IV.

He has a good feeling about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated!


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